Royal Mail Union Threatens Strike to Protect Pension Plan

Post by **nataddick** » 19 Sep 2016, 21:17

Agree with toomuchcoke - I do the exactly the same and make no excuses for looking after my own money as no one else has a greater interest in my financial affairs than me.

jetblack · Post by **jetblack** » 19 Sep 2016, 21:43

Hey - I was "stoozing" credit cards in 2007 - putting the money in a high interest account in Iceland. Then the crunch happened.

I was only joking when I said he was ruining the country

Still, in my own little catholic way, I have had an enduring guilt about the great crash, seeing as I was making money from the, well, the money.

Of course, I'm paying for it now [unlike the banks] - I'll lose plenty if the DB scheme goes pear shaped.

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 23 Sep 2016, 07:31

This thread is bizarre ! Royal Mail aim to cut your pay which after all is what pensions are deferred pay by at least 10% and we have people supporting it.

Roll back to the pay offer and we had people saying lets strike because they did not like the 1.6% pay offer.

Really is a mixed up world !

Don't be conned Royal Mail are looking at cutting your deferred pay and will only listen if people don't accept it. If you do accept it don't be surprised if they want more cuts at the same time to your terms and conditions.

If you leave Royal Mail to run a pension scheme than you will get just the DC scheme which without union involvement they set up !

We can all talk around the world of finance all we like ! The fact is do we accept Royal Mail cutting our overall pay by around 10% by reducing their pension contributions to a lower level from 17.1% too either 6, 7 or 9% ? That really is the issu not whether you have taken out AVCs etc ! Many in Royal Mail have not ! The purpose of the union is look after everyone not say hard luck you should have invested in AVCs etc.

Don't let Royal Mail off the hook ! They can afford a decent defined benefit scheme for all staff ! They have decided instead to reward the shareholder by ripping off employees pensions ! Don't be conned !

Post by **milly** » 23 Sep 2016, 08:46

dingo wrote:This thread is bizarre ! Royal Mail aim to cut your pay which after all is what pensions are deferred pay by at least 10% and we have people supporting it.

Roll back to the pay offer and we had people saying lets strike because they did not like the 1.6% pay offer.

Really is a mixed up world !

Don't be conned Royal Mail are looking at cutting your deferred pay and will only listen if people don't accept it. If you do accept it don't be surprised if they want more cuts at the same time to your terms and conditions.

If you leave Royal Mail to run a pension scheme than you will get just the DC scheme which without union involvement they set up !

We can all talk around the world of finance all we like ! The fact is do we accept Royal Mail cutting our overall pay by around 10% by reducing their pension contributions to a lower level from 17.1% too either 6, 7 or 9% ? That really is the issu not whether you have taken out AVCs etc ! Many in Royal Mail have not ! The purpose of the union is look after everyone not say hard luck you should have invested in AVCs etc.

Don't let Royal Mail off the hook ! They can afford a decent defined benefit scheme for all staff ! They have decided instead to reward the shareholder by ripping off employees pensions ! Don't be conned !

Royal Mail could leave the Pension alone but they would have to look at making even more efficiency savings to fund it,which in turn would lead to heavy job losses.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and the money has to come from somewhere.
Many people debating this topic just seem to use emotion and virtue signalling to argue their point rather than using facts and logic.

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 23 Sep 2016, 09:23

Milly what do you think Royal Mail are doing under OMP , more automation , longer spans , later starts , further closures of Mail centres and RDCs and of course merging a third of delivery offices. Yes they are cutting jobs. This is not a choice Royal Mail are doing both.

As for a free lunch , well we have honoured our commitment of paying 6% in our pensions per week every week. We did not have a pension holiday like Royal Mail ! We did not close the final salary scheme , we did not change the brand name of the company to Consignia ! We did not buy all those foreign parcel companies and than sell them for pea nuts ! We did not invest in all that money in sequencing letters when letters are supposedly in decline and now there loads of CSS machines worth millions mothballed. I could go on !

The fact is why don't they stop paying themselves at the top huge bonus which mean they don't need a pension many who will leave too another gold plated jobs whilst our members work to deliver the profit but are always the ones who see their pay and pensions cut !

Post by **milly** » 23 Sep 2016, 10:50

dingo wrote:Milly what do you think Royal Mail are doing under OMP , more automation , longer spans , later starts , further closures of Mail centres and RDCs and of course merging a third of delivery offices. Yes they are cutting jobs. This is not a choice Royal Mail are doing both.

As for a free lunch , well we have honoured our commitment of paying 6% in our pensions per week every week. We did not have a pension holiday like Royal Mail ! We did not close the final salary scheme , we did not change the brand name of the company to Consignia ! We did not buy all those foreign parcel companies and than sell them for pea nuts ! We did not invest in all that money in sequencing letters when letters are supposedly in decline and now there loads of CSS machines worth millions mothballed. I could go on !

The fact is why don't they stop paying themselves at the top huge bonus which mean they don't need a pension many who will leave too another gold plated jobs whilst our members work to deliver the profit but are always the ones who see their pay and pensions cut !

You are correct we did not cause any of this Pension mess,external factors have conspired against us.
But that is in the past and we have to deal with the here and now.
Whether you like it or not we will be losing more and more jobs to automation,which will lead to fewer employees contributing to the Pension pot.
Too many people only focus on the negatives and are never happy yet they continue to work for Royal Mail (it really isn't that bad in my opinion).
Our pay and conditions are far better than most of the working population,such as paid meal reliefs,decent pension,up to 6 weeks holiday a year,free shares and good pay for the job we do.
I consider myself very lucky to have worked for Royal Mail for nearly 30 years.

Martin Walsh · Post by **Martin Walsh** » 23 Sep 2016, 13:59

Milly I have done 32 years with Royal Mail and we have got those benefits because we fought for them over the years and forced Royal Mail to give them and than we defended them from being removed.

Remember up to 1994 postmen and women were on just £10, 000 pounds per year working 6 days per week. The Union demanded and fought for better pay and if you look at the pay restructuring deal under the Way Forward and the £26 per week increase in 2003 under the single daily delivery and pay and major change came out of a strike. Equally in 2007 and 2009 the pay rises comes out of further strikes and the pay deal under the Agenda for Growth and legal guarantees came from the threat of strike action.

In terms of pensions the union has led that debate it was the UPW who got death in service benefits ect. In terms of meal reliefs Royal Mail wanted to take them in 2007 and also put people on monthly pay it was the CWU which stopped them

So you see if pays for fight rather than accept Royal Mail"s slash and burn policy to our terms and conditions.

Post by **RobertT** » 23 Sep 2016, 15:37

I wasn’t going to bother posting because I think everything that can be said has been said, and I no longer wish to contribute to RMC in a major way anymore(that’s another issue). But I agree that this thread has lost its way especially with all the class war rubbish. Although in practice if you go onto any online forum many threads end up like a game of Chinese Whispers, ie you start with one subject and end up with something totally different!

However, there have been comments on this thread along the lines of people are: ‘giving up’, ‘being defeatist’ or ‘supporting RM’ – what complete tosh!!!!! In practice it’s a case of looking at the information that’s available and coming to an informed opinion. Obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion and mine is that the RMPP will close in 2018 and there are 3 main reasons why :

Increased life expectancy
Lower than expected investment returns
RM wishing/needing to streamline and save money

We can say that RM are cutting our deferred pay and I wouldn’t disagree that morally they have a duty to keep their side of the bargain. But legally they can do more or less what they want, just as they did in 2008 and 2014, which the CWU ultimately couldn’t do anything about.

We can say the RM want to cut the pension scheme to pay more in dividends. But the quoted figures for keeping the scheme open are £500 Million per year. That would equate to a more than tripling of the yearly dividend. Do you really think that’s going to happen?

We can say that people aren’t living longer or that the investments aren’t underperforming. But fact says otherwise.

Over nearly 30 years of my RM service the union has earned some major benefits and I agree that our conditions would be a lot worse if they hadn’t taken on the company, which is why we should always fight.

I have no intention of rolling over and just accepting this change and I will be taking part in any industrial action ballot that takes place, unlike 50% of our friends at the Post Office and I suspect many colleagues in RM. And I will be voting for IA because I know how valuable the RMPP is. So please do not misinterpret my opinions on the matter as being defeatist.

Those of us who take an interest in our own future know how important the RMPP is. So in my opinion we actually have two fights on our hands: 1) with RM and; 2) Getting the message over to those posties who don’t seem to give a damn about their pension, as it’s these people who probably just file their annual statement each year and will probably do the same with any ballot paper they receive. I trust the CWU will be doing a major awareness campaign to get the message across?

Dingo, you mentioned AVC’s! I appreciate that many posties don’t pay extra, but one of the reasons I’ve piled a lot of money into them is that the CWU weren’t able to keep the FS scheme open in 2008 and so the only way to enable myself to retire at an age I wanted, was to fund the shortfall that the closure caused myself. And I’ve made sacrifices to do so!
In practice paying more than the basic level of contributions is the only way many people will be able to retire at a decent age, whether the RMPP stays open or not.

Post by **fly-catchers** » 23 Sep 2016, 16:41

Hi Robert, I wonder where you were and thought you were on holiday! I hope you don't disappear as your advice and insight on all matters to do with the RMPP and AVC's is invaluable and essential...

jetblack · Post by **jetblack** » 23 Sep 2016, 16:44

I wouldn't say that this thread has gone "off topic" TBH. It's all good.

But what it has done has been to highlight some of the counter arguments that could (and possibly should) be used against those put forward by RM in wanting to axe the scheme, as well as to colleagues who believe it's all inevitable - like they have no personal agency or freedom to act in their own interests - because they do.
I personally find that quite a sad thing to witness - it's like when my kid wants to give up doing their homework cos "they can't do it". It has nothing to do with ability - it's all to do with self belief (and mental blocks)

And for that reason I believe it has been a useful thread.

Just to mention the "class warfare" rubbish. Listen, you can call it what you want, but when you have a country with the 2nd lowest levels of social mobility in the western world, with the same couple dozen families owning around 70% of the land that held it 150 years ago, when virtually every position of power and control in the country is held by a public school Oxbridge elite, and when the richest 1% have become adept at increasing their share of the wealth and income pie even since the 2008 crash, when we have food banks, public sector "austerity", record levels of household debt, - well, if you wish to ignore these facts then I'd say you are wilfully burying your heads in the sand.
Why is this relevant to this thread ? Because in my view the proposed closure of the DB scheme is yet another point laying on the income/wealth [re]distribution trend curve that I touched on above. I don't think that without a broader appreciation of the socio economic background to the pension scheme "crisis" we stand any chance of getting our heads around what is actually happening here. So I make no apology for daring to mention class.

Hey, it doesn't make me a Trot

Ps. Robert - don't be too disillusioned with the people who seemingly have no interest in pensions. For want of a better way of putting it, some people just don't have a "head for it" and can be confused by these things. Just one reason why your personal time spent on this forum has been so worthwhile in my view.

Post by **nataddick** » 23 Sep 2016, 17:49

Robert - totally agree with you and thanks for providing valuable help and assistance over the years in the absence of both the CWU or RM.

oliviamae · Post by **oliviamae** » 23 Sep 2016, 20:50

I never post , but Robert your knowledge of pensions has been so valuable to me

Post by **nataddick** » 23 Sep 2016, 21:26

Dingo - if you want to use the deferred pay argument I think perhaps you should clarify. Yes, pensions are a form of deferred pay but where is the 'cut' actually coming from ?

Let's be clear, there is no question of RM not honouring pensions accrued up to the 31 March 2018 - they are bound by Section 67 of the Pensions Act 1995, so they cannot make detrimental changes retrospectively without agreement. See :-

http://www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org. ... ur-pension" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So, we will actually get the benefit of all deferred pay up to the date of any change in 2018. This leaves the question of whether going forward we are, in effect getting a pay cut. The answer to this is at the heart of the matter. If the CWU are unable to negotiate a deal that commits RM to contribute at least it's 17.1% of pensionable pay as the 'regular' employer contribution beyond 2018, then arguably we will have had a deferred pay cut.

I am with the CWU on this but let's make the focus of the pensions argument crystal clear.

toomuchcoke · Post by **toomuchcoke** » 25 Sep 2016, 17:55

nataddick wrote:If the CWU are unable to negotiate a deal that commits RM to contribute at least it's 17.1% of pensionable pay as the 'regular' employer contribution beyond 2018, then arguably we will have had a deferred pay cut.

I think the only way you'd get 17.1% as an employer contribution is if :-
(a) the deal doesn't include any pay increase as a "sweetener".
(b) only people who joined before whenever it was in 2008 get the 17.1% with people who joined after that date only getting at most 9% like they do now.

Though I suppose that second part wouldn't make it so terrible a deal from the RM's perspective - as people left they'd be replaced with other people who only got 9%, thus meaning the company's pension costs would continue to decline.

jetblack · Post by **jetblack** » 25 Sep 2016, 18:48

How about the shortfall be met by both RM and members of the scheme both increasing their contributions proportionately ? Yes, it'd be a pay cut, but I personally will have to be upping my contributions to my pension arrangements if the DB scheme is scrapped anyway, to meet my personal shortfall, if you see what I mean.
At least this way RM would be doing their bit - as well they should.
When interest rates eventually recover it could be prior agreed that both our contributions revert back to the current level.